Xiaopeng automobile wants to build an intelligent manufacturing base

In the era of mobile Internet, automobile is about the most easy to wrap up the traditional enterprise with the Internet thinking: the third space, Internet entrance, new energy, driverless, Shared car... Just listening is enough for "disruption". What is achieving these "disruption" is the hot word in the auto industry: "new car manufacturers". Currently, there are hundreds of new car manufacturers in China.

Different from other new car forces who often show off their skills in front of the media, the low-key xiaopeng automobile invested capital into the intelligent manufacturing base at the very beginning, with 2,000 employees out of 3,000 doing research and development. Maximize the quality, will be in line with the Chinese driving habits of the intelligent Internet application in the car, "shouzheng surprise" is allowing xiaopeng car this low-key new force of car building from guangzhou, accelerate.

The highlight of the new car is the smart network

Among the new car manufacturers, xiaopeng automobile is a "guangzhou" enterprise. It is ostentatious, less than wei lai; It is less financing than wima; It on the western style, not as baiteng; It is even less vocal than a ranger when it comes to building cars and educating the masses. Many people don't even know that xiaopeng has been established for four years.

But the low-key xiaopeng is almost the only new car company that hasn't wavered in its technological path. "Quality, as an important attribute of a car, is irreplaceable and subversive, which is the biggest difference between xiaopeng automobile and other new car manufacturers." Xia heng, the co-founder of xiaopeng automobile and President of xiaopeng automobile, emphasized this sentence repeatedly in our interview. Xiaopeng automobile is the first new manufacturing enterprise that puts "quality" in the first place.

I'm surprised to be on the right track. For xiaopeng automobile, "shouzheng" means to maximize the quality of the automobile. In terms of autonomous driving, xiaopeng aims to meet 74% of driving application scenarios. Xiaopeng automobile should make differentiation in Internet service, so that intelligent cars have higher technology and appearance. "Compared with other new car manufacturers, the biggest highlight of differentiation is the intelligent network, in which xiaopeng automobile has invested a lot of research and development." Xia heng introduced.

Xia Hang said xiao peng car on intelligent snatched four innovation: the first G3 USES the industry in the first landmark 360 ° car camera, connected to the Internet, can immediately will rotate yuntai photographs and video to quickly share on social networking, bring a lot of surprise to young. Secondly, in terms of music, the online music in the car is more convenient to hear the music that users like. In terms of cloud identification, xiaopeng automobile can understand the intention of the driver more accurately through the link of the cloud platform and make driving safer. Finally, in terms of navigation, xiaopeng's navigation provides users with more accurate and interesting real-time experience through joint development with partners.

The xiaopeng G3 officially accepted pre-orders on April 26, and the first models will be delivered by the end of 2018. The reporter experienced G3 personally a few days ago, go up in quality, reach the level of car of mainstream combustion engine on market truly at present. In terms of intelligence, the G3 is equipped with dual cameras, binocular side-view cameras, four panoramic cameras, three millimeter-wavespecials, 12 ultrasonic sensors and two in-cabin smart cameras. A total of 20 smart sensor devices are embedded in the flowing lines of the vehicle, which is a leading supporting equipment in the industry.

At present, xiaopeng automobile provides the best production quality among all new car manufacturers. Compared with traditional automobile enterprises, it has the high efficiency and innovation of the Internet. Among the mobile travel enterprises, they are the best at using data. On the track of automatic driving, it takes the lead in achieving L2.5 level mass production... If we want to use a word to sum up the advantages and potential of xiaopeng automobile, it is not "crossover", but "integration". "Cross the line" is only a little, "convergence" is through.

Investors most value high team integration, product positioning

According to public information, the latest round of financing for xiaopeng auto took place in February this year, and it was a series B round with a total amount of 2.2 billion yuan. Leading the investment are alibaba, foxconn and IDG capital, followed by yunfeng fund, Apoletto and cicc. Jiyuan capital, morningside capital and matrix venture capital of A+ round of capital injection are listed on the list of investment institutions. Xiaopeng (rmb5.5bn) is third behind nextev (rmb14bn) and weimar (rmb12bn) in terms of cumulative financing.

What do investors value most about xiaopeng's advantages? When the reporter put the question to the hongheng, he said: "xiaopeng car is a very organic integration of Internet and auto people, like he xiaopeng has a very successful business background, the whole team has a very good engineering experience, the probability of success of such a team fusion is very high. In addition, it is our products, whether positioning or stage results are so that investors feel identity and satisfaction.

The 5.5 billion yuan and series B financing are clearly far from the end of xiaopeng. 2018 is a crucial year, and the financing amount of xiaopeng is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan. "Xiaopeng financing is based on the premise of not greatly diluting the share of the founder team, so it will not be kidnapped by capital and will not be weakened the right to speak." Honing.

However, after the Letv event, the capital market began to become rational and cautious. In 2018, according to a new deloitte survey, "smart" money will only go to more reliable car manufacturers, making it harder for new manufacturers to find long-term meal tickets.

Reporter noticed that xiaopeng auto series B financing launch ceremony, alibaba co-founder Joe tsai, foxconn hongteng precision chairman lu songqing, IDG capital partner Yang fei, xiaopeng auto chairman he xiaopeng four people stood arm in arm. CAI chongxin's attendance, lets the outside world produce outside financing surmise and daydream. In the field of intelligent travel, alibaba has made a wide range of layout in the upstream and downstream, from aliyun to zebra-zhixing, and even launched a series of "Internet cars" jointly with saic. However, before xiaopeng, alibaba's cooperation with oems was limited to big data and on-board Internet. Alibaba needs a brand new car manufacturer to get through the data flow from cloud to terminal.

We will invest in building an intelligent manufacturing base

At this year's Beijing auto show, many new car manufacturers have demonstrated their mass production cars, but the new car manufacturers mainly contract manufacturers are still criticized by the industry, how to break through almost all the new car manufacturers headache. The exception is xiaopeng, which spends most of its financing on research and development and production. When he xiaopeng and xia heng are interviewed by us, they emphasize "quality" repeatedly. Automobile quality refers to the standards that meet the needs of users, such as appearance, structure, function, reliability, durability, service guarantee, etc., because in a long period of time, "vehicle" is still the first attribute of the automobile, and this situation will not change due to energy conversion.

"It took us more than four years to establish a quality control system and upgrade our production line in zhengzhou haima. 3 billion yuan is invested to build the third production line with zhengzhou haima, which will be put into production in 2018. In 2019, zhaoqing intelligent manufacturing base will go into operation. Xia heng introduced.

For xiaopeng automobile, the continuous improvement of quality is a process of "short-filling". Even, the pursuit of quality, has gone beyond the level of simple product manufacturing, rising to the whole system on the pursuit of improvement.

In fact, "carmaking quality" and "scale carmaking quality" are two different concepts. As a result, mass production has become a major "difficulty" for all new car manufacturers.

This is not the xiao peng car alarmist. Traditional carmakers have reduced PPM (the rate of defects per million parts) to 15, a very strict standard that is the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all new carmakers.

'trouble comes when nextev products are officially delivered,' xiao yong, gac's vice President of new energy, told li bin, nextev's chairman, who was seated next to him at a public dialogue session. In fact, the first movers, like tesla, were most complained about by users, not the mileage, but the rough workmanship.

60% of the employees do research and development

In terms of sustainability, if there is a new car manufacturer that should be least worried about, it should be xiaopeng. Because xiaopeng currently 3000 people in the team, there are 2000 people doing research and development; Also because xiaopeng car with the geographical advantage, the use of gac parts supply chain, gac production model of the world's leading; More because, back to ali, xiaopeng automobile has smooth financing channels and ready-made data ecology. The biggest worry, however, is xiaopeng.

The result of their analysis and argumentation is that continuous efforts and accumulation are needed to continuously improve the quality, realize the coupling between the Internet and cars, make efficient use of data and improve the application scenarios of automatic driving. Xiaopeng is racing against the clock. "by next year, xiaopeng will have 5,000 employees, of which 3,000 are in research and development, accounting for 60%." He xiaopeng introduces. At the same time, in terms of talent selection, they prefer Japanese system to minimize running in and internal friction time.

He xiaopeng said xiaopeng auto is still in the 0-1 stage, that is, from scratch. When will it be over? He xiaopeng sets three assessment standards:

First, the scale of the company was expanded to 5000 people, and the company had its own team in all aspects to make several cars. Second, the annual production and sales of 100,000 vehicles, scale effect; Third, quality and quality system quality process to do solid.

"The foundation is not solid, behind a somersault let the enterprise fall into the abyss." For example, he xiaopeng pointed out that mobile phones can even be forced to upgrade if major problems are found, but not cars.

Xiaopeng also believes that it is far from enough that artificial intelligence can only be used, but also needs to be easy to use; In order for pure electric vehicles to replace traditional vehicles and become the mainstream of the market, it is far from enough to rely on social forces to build charging piles. The model can not only be mass production, must be on the scale, must be "100,000 +".

Escape the comfort zone and start a new business

Recently, li shufu, chairman of geely group, caused a huge response in the industry for his unkind voice on the new car manufacturers. "the new car manufacturers are hyping the concept of 'Internet cars' to fool the common people and make money in the capital market," he said.

"Although the Internet car manufacturing can quickly gather talent and technical resources, it is difficult to integrate in a short time, which is unfavorable for the establishment and growth of automobile product brands. Dong Yang, vice-president of the China association of automobile manufacturers, once said that only when the products in the drawing stage are implemented as soon as possible can we have the opportunity to fulfill the dream that "only those who have been laughed at by 99% can we be qualified to talk about the success of 1%".

In the face of different voices from the outside world, as the founder and chairman of the new car manufacturing enterprise, he xiaopeng's feelings for xiaopeng automobile is beyond doubt, because his name is engraved on the enterprise name. At present, in the auto industry, only bill ford seems to be the only one named after himself besides he xiaopeng.

Why did he xiaopeng choose to escape from his comfort zone and start a business again after having a successful entrepreneurial background? "We want to do something that will change the lives of Chinese people," he replied, echoing his partner xia heng, President of xiaopeng automobile. In the next 10 to 15 years, there will be significant changes in mobile travel, which will come from the coupling of the Internet and cars, and the coupling of artificial intelligence and cars.

In April this year, in order to verify the reliability, xiaopeng 1.0 started from guangzhou, after 2,338 kilometers, through changsha, wuhan, zhengzhou and other cities, successfully arrived in Beijing, the field shows the main line of electric vehicle self-driving travel has a good charging facilities.

In the face of doubt, xia heng very calm: "we do these things, to the old retirement can brag to their children and grandchildren. Now xiaopeng is still in the process of '0' to '1'. By 2020, you will see a different xiaopeng.

Journalist observation:

"Vehicle building + self-built charging stations" shall be carried out simultaneously

According to the plan, xiaopeng will produce and sell 20,000-30,000 vehicles in 2019 and 100,000 in 2020. Now, the strategy is paying off, with the first G3 delivery scheduled for late 2018.

New building cars, and many enterprises "production, and whether or not the charge", xiao-peng he thinks new energy to really accept by the market, must be thoroughly solve the problem of charge, but close at hand - 2020 never thought in 2020 so far, and must come up with real solutions, this can not dozen careless eye, is a new building cars the survival of enterprises.

As a matter of fact, there is no other plan but "building cars + self-built charging stations". This is also the reason why xiaopeng automobile will build more than 1,000 supercharger stations, 10,000 charging piles and 100,000 tripartite cooperative charging piles by itself, instead of setting up a grand urban exhibition hall in first-tier cities.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.